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35^5 

A58V6 

1907 





Class ljS^3 Si- £ 
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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



YOUTH 

By 

J. H. WALLIS 




Boston 

RICHARD G. BADGER 

The Gorham Press 

1907 



Copyright 1907, by J. H. Wallis 
All rights reserved 



Two CoDles KbS«Jv(j(j / 

AUG 18 1901 

CflpyrurM Enfry 
CUSSf^/^/XXc, N6. 
COPY J. \ 



PS3545 



The Gotham Pre»f, Boston, U. S. A. 



DEDICATION 

To My Mother 

To you I owe much of my being 

And most of my heart 
That throbs with the feelings my fancy 

Has clothed in this costume of art. 
There are those that are common to many 

And potent to injure or bless; 
And these let all know ofy but others 

We dare not express. 

The years that are age^s creators 

And death's harbingers 
Are strong with an equal dominion 

In your heart and my heart and my verse. 
But those who are numb unto sorrow 

Are weaker and poorer by far, 
And so we would not have us other 

Than such as we are. 



CONTENTS 

Youth 9 

Touth and Fame 1° 

The Teaming of Touth II 

Touth and Age ^3 

Touth Compares Himself with Age 1 7 

Touth' s a Stuff will not Endure l8 

Love's Altar ^9 

Snares ^O 

A Visitor 21 

Two Lovers ^^ 

The Widower ^3 

The New America ^5 

Iowa 9 

The City ^ 31 

Heaven 33 

Our Creation 3" 

New Tears Eve 39 

Song to Maia 4° 

Summer 4^ 

The Flux of Things 43 

The Poet 44 



YOUTH 



YOUTH 

I exult in what age cannot grieve, 

I am filled with what time cannot tire: 
Unboundable power to achieve, 

Unreachable goals to inspire. 
In my boundless control over things. 

In my limitless reach of desire 
I am equal with conquerors and kings — 

I am youth, I am life, I am fire! 

I awake to the scope of my being — 

All is sudden and endless and new; 
My work is too vast for the seeing. 

But I know what my effort can do. 
Where are armies that I cannot lead them ? 

Where are foes that would dare me to strife ?- 
The sword and the cannon shall feed them. 

I am fire, I am youth, I am life! 

Obeisance } — my power will command it 

To the mandate I bear in my strife. 
With the sizzling of fire I will brand it, 

I will seal it with letters of life. 
And its end will be like its beginning: 

*' Bow down to the progress of truth.'* 
And the world is too small for the winning — 

I am life, I am fire, I am youth! 



YOUTH AND FAME 

World, wrinkled world, while I am young grant 
fame. 
While I can taste the fruit of my desire 
Light on each hill a leaping signal fire; 
Yea, let thy vassal hills in fire proclaim 
Across the lands the blazing of my name. 

Grant laurel crowns and jewelled and golden 

wire 
That I may fling them at Her feet entire 
While on her cheeks the blood burns like a 
flame. 

When life's low fire glows a dull ashy red. 
And earth I count of little worth or wit. 

Fame may be mine when fame's desire is fled. 
When I am old and do not care for it; 
And she who was to wear my crowns and sit 

A queen — who knows ^ — perhaps she may 
be dead. 



10 



THE YEARNING OF YOUTH 

Before I am tied to a city, 

Or smile by the side of a wife, 
I must look on earth's riches and secrets 

To feed my keen craving of life. 
I must sail to the ends of the ocean. 

And gaze on the faces of kings, 
In the land of the morning and evening 

I must look on strange things. 

Across the hot sands of Sahara 

In the train of the slovsr caravan 
I shall follow the craving that leads me. 

That stirs in the youth of a man. 
The anger of heat and of sunlight. 

The jargon of alien speech 
For my eyes and my ears will be feeding 

Of the hunger of each. 

From the realm where the heat is eternal 

To the kingdoms of mountains of cold, 
With Danger and Death for my comrades 

I shall seek some red battle of old. 
Beyond the last flag of our nations, 

Beyond the dominion of steam, 
Where the Great King was conquered or captured 

Is the land of my dream. 



II 



I would tread where has trod Alexander, 

In the secreted heart of the East, 
I would taste all its sweets and its sorrows, 

In its rites I would be as a priest. 
I would learn of its wonders and riches 

Of fabrics and diamonds and pearls, 
I would gaze on its age-hidden secrets 

And the graces of girls. 

The red grapes of joy and of pleasure, 

The blood, red and streaming, of strife. 
The poison of anguish and sorrow. 

Will fill the rich cup of my life. 
All sounds and all tastes and all colors 

And motions, are part of my goal, 
And feelings and passions and dreamings 

Are food for my soul. 

And all this will be like the music 

That adds to the spirit that hears. 
Or like words that are heard and forgotten 

(Enriching the days and the years). 
The earth is my vassal to serve me, 

The flesh is my servant to feed. 
And the nations I hold in a thralldom 

For my wishes or need. 



12 



YOUTH AND AGE 

Youth 

I am tense with the glory of living, 

Filled with forces of life as they are; 
My goal is the end of creation, 

And my guidance a star. 
I am trembling with numberless longings, 

I am eager for labors that lure, 
Though my mind seeks the world for a conquest 

My strength will endure. 

Age 

I near the end of my journey — 

The end of the journey is pain. 
My goal is clay of the graveyard, 

My guide is a cane. 

Youth 

I have gazed on the white beams of heaven 

And have laughed at the wonders of earth. 
For my friends are the stars in their courses. 

And the world is my mirth. 
And all things are tools for my using 

Or the ministers of my desire, 
For the earth and the air are my servants 

And the water and fire. 



13 



Age 

Beyond the nebulae forming 

I have travelled in torment, my friend; 
I have gazed on the earth and its wonders, 

And have thought of the end. 
My eyes are hollow^ with seeing. 

My lips are silent with awe, 
For I cannot forget where I travelled — 

Nor tell what I saw. 

Touth 

To delve in the mysteries hidden. 

Unhindered by ages of awe. 
The truth to discover unbidden — 

Then to tell what I saw — 
This is part of the scope of my purpose 

That the nations may cringe at my name, 
And the rocks and the rivers and cities 

Quiver with fame. 

Age 

Our blasts that sound so boldly 

On the headland heights of fame 
Are as creaking of the crickets 

In the roar of a flame. 
Yea, the name for which you struggle, 

On the giddy wheel of time 
Is like dust before the whirlwind, 

Or a lost rime. 

14 



I know that no mortal endureth, 

Not the true nor the just nor the great; 

We are but the toys of the ages 
And the puppets of fate. 

Youth 

Nay! one thing can fate annul never, 

Nor can the ages destroy; 
One thing endureth forever 

Neither puppet nor toy. 
When the flare of the suns is in ashes 

And the thunder of planets above 
Is ended, one thing will be living. 

And that is love! 

She has given that life to my spirit 

That a thousand deaths cannot slay, 
The rusting of years cannot wear it. 

Nor time take away; 
She has given the glory of living 

Since I knew that my breath is her breath. 
That I feel eontempt for the ages 

And pity for death! 



15 



Age 

The words of youth are like torches 

That flare and at midnight decay, 
The thoughts of youth are like shadows 

That night takes away. 
The bolts that you thundered so surely 

In your clamorous volley of breath 
Are like raindrops that strive with the ocean 

On the armor of death. 

The passion of youth is nothing 

That death takes reckoning of, 
And fate is not stayed for a woman 

And all of her love. 
For me a friend is my choosing. 

In my respite while death still delays 
I seek out some lonely old comrade 

And talk of old days. 

My glory of life is departed 

Like a shadow that night takes away, 
I shiver afraid of the highest, 

With fear in the way. 
My eyes are turned backward from seeing. 

My lips are silent with awe. 
For I dare not reflect on my journey, 

Nor see what I saw. 



i6 



YOUTH COMPARES HIMSELF WITH 
AGE 

I am young and full of dreams — 
Dreams of honor, wisdom, doubt, 

Love wherein all gladness seems — 
What has age to dream about? 

All my thoughts are things to come: 
Deeds all great and strange and new, 

Yearnings leading far from home — 
What strange things has age to do ? 

If she will be mine some day — 
Helen, Grace, or Rosalys — 

Greater sweet would no man pray — 
What red lips has age to kiss ? 

All my joys are yet to be; 

His can never be, he knows, 
Having been. He has to see 

Only what can death disclose. 



17 



YOUTH'S A STUFF WILL NOT ENDURE 

Kiss me tonight, dear, while we're young 
And the love-light shines through your happy 
tears; 

Ask no delays, for the knell's soon rung, 

And where shall we be in a hundred years ? 

Nobody will ask to kiss you then. 

Nobody will say that your smile endears; 

Millionaires, servant-maids, beggar-men 

Will walk on your grave in a hundred years. 

I shall not ask to kiss you then. 

I shall be dead, and my mind that fears 
And my heart that longs will be nothing when 

The circuit is run of a hundred years. 

Kiss me tonight, dear, while you can; 

Love me the more ere the dark day nears 
When the horror comes o'er the soul of a man. 

Where shall we be in a hundred years ? 



i8 



LOVE'S ALTAR 

The incense of Love's sacrifice is sweet 
When everyone doth bring his offering, 
And blushful lovers join in worshiping, 

Singing the songs through ancient usage meet. 

Who heeds the sound of toiling in the street, 
Or turns his steps to dusty wayfaring? 
Song upon song! It is a priceless thing 

To place a votive offering at Love's feet. 

Ceaseless the gifts that pile Love's altar high — 
Richest of all the heart hath choices of; 

Yea, the sweet savor trailing lightly by 
Is ever-burning life-blood true enough. 

For charred and dead upon Love's altar lie 

Life's dearest things but one — and that 
one love. 



19 



SNARES 

Hair spun of spider-gold, 

Lips one would die to kiss, 
Will it be held amiss 

Should I be overbold ? 

Caught in the spider's thread 
Who holds the fly to blame ? 
Should there to me be shame 

By spider-beauty led ? 

Eros hath smitten me 

By that heart-bow, thy mouth. 

Thirsty from Love's long drouth 
I seek my well in thee. 



20 



A VISITOR 

My life will be little without her, 
Without her my strength will decay, 

For the spirit of love is about her 
And that is my power and my stay; 

My purpose will fail and hope sicken 
When she is gone away. 

The flower and the flower-leaf 

Will wither in the grass, 
The oat-sheaf and the barley-sheaf 

Will mold as the rains pass, 
And the golden-rod will come to grief 

With all the wealth it has. 

She is pure as the air of the mountains 

To the traveller at rest. 
And cool as the spray of fountains 

When the heat is bitterest, 
Or as winds across the waters 

When the sun is in the west. 



21 



TWO LOVERS 

Her cheeks are the silvery pink that lies 
In shells, her eyes are heavenly blue, 

Her mouth is sw^eet v^ith modesties, 
Her hair is sun and shadov^ too. 

His deep-set eyes look straight before 
Half-dreamily, seeing future things. 

His limbs are strong w^ith the strength of four, 
His head is royal, like a king's. 

It is great bliss for them to sit 

And kiss beneath the maple trees, 

To feel each other's heart-beats flit 
Is sw^eet as life can be to these. 

To speak one's highest thoughts with ease, 
To touch, to see one's worshiper. 

To kiss beneath the maple trees, 
Is^very sweet to him and her. 



22 



THE WIDOWER 

He married her and then she died. 

His flower was broken by the wind; 
The sweetest flower in the world wide 

Was crushed and left no seed behind. 

Because he did so worship her 
And could not part with all his love, 

He laid her not where others were 
But buried her in his own grove. 

Beneath the trees where they had talked 
And trembled at each other's kiss, 

Below the ground where she had walked 
He laid what love and joy were his. 

As she had been his own in life 
He thought of her as his when dead. 

Though she was now a dumb, cold wife, 
Her house he often visited. 

Once as he touched her grave he said, 
** Sweet, silent one, you do not hear 

While on this mound I lay my head 
And speak of all your goodness, dear. 



23 



I know that crushed on fate's quick wheel, 
Sweet, silent one, there is no you, 

But I would give even life to feel 
That what some people say is true: 

That I shall meet you as you were 

With that strange sweetness that you had, 

Your hair that made my heart to stir, 

And your clean smile that made me 
glad. 

Thinking how sweet she was to touch, 
How sweet to kiss and sit beside, 

His mind went wandering over-much 
And he forgot that she had died. 

He tried to kiss her lips, to say 

In thought, some name he used to call, 

But something always barred the way — 
He seemed to strike against a wall. 

He tried to gain some certain hold 

On this strange thing that barred him 
thus — 

He vaguely felt his cheek was cold 
And knew that there the trouble was. 



24 



That cold touch brought him back to life, 
And made him quake in heart and limb; 

He knew he had a grave to wife 
And many lights were dark to him. 

THE NEW AMERICA 

Our country, bound with bands of steel 
From ocean shore to ocean shore. 

Thou art how glorious and how real — 
Like nothing earth has seen before. 

In blood and battle thou wert born 
To stretch thy name across the earth; 

From heaven full many a star was torn 
In the dark evening of thy birth. 

But many a storm is weathered now 
And many a foe is laid to rest — 

Green laurels deck thy still-green brow 
And life still surges in thy breast. 

— Still young to make the world go round, 
To bear the thrusts and turns of fate; 

Still flushed to make the lands resound 
With life and zeal intemperate! 



25 



Without the lure of ancient days 

But greater than the dead past brings, 

You roll upon your giant ways 
Above the wrecks of dusty kings. 

What were the ancient great that blazed 
In colored pomp that flamed like the sun 

To this where liberty hath raised 
A hundred nations into one ? 

How would their gods of battle class 

With thine ? Thine iron ships would glide 

Through triremes as through broken glass, 
Thy guns would soil the phalanx' pride. 

The treasures that the Great King lost 

At Susa and Persepolis 
Were baubles to the giant cost 

That makes one city what it is. 



26 



In ancient art and polities 

Let Pedant of the dome-like brow 

Declare a greater glory lies — 

No one believes such nonsense now. 

For all the honored past has wrought 
In sculptured stone and lofty rime 

And lordly heritage of thought 
Is part of this, the present time. 

We are the heirs of all the years; 

And thou, the latest land and last, 
A-throb with deeds and aims and fears, 

Art chiefest heir of all the past. 

And now among the great of earth 
What nation dares thy fury feel. 

Or questions of thy greater worth. 
Or dares to test thy grip of steel } 

Thy power is feared on shore and main, 

In every land, on every sea; 
Across the world and back again 

Is not enough for thine and thee. 



27 



But now no land fears thunderous guns 

Or fields of men or iron boats 
Of thine or any other one's — 

Thy power of wealth is at their throats. 

For now no land would dare despise 
Thy food or men, or dare express 

A limit to thine enterprise; 

And seas have found thee limitless. 

Where ghosts of bloody galleons ride 
And fearful shade imploreth shade, 

In peaceful power thy flag floats wide. 
Thy mighty steamships ply in trade. 

Thus thou hast bound the world about 

With chains that wealth will weld complete, 

And time will bid thy power spread out 
To bring the nations to thy feet. 

From greater heights to greater heights, 
The past and present to transcend. 

Thy glory leaps like leaping lights, 
And no one now can see the end. 



28 



IOWA 

No towering cities million-souled 

Blacken the beauty of thy plain, 
Or bind thine heart with links of gold 

Or curse of pleasure and of pain. 

The sneer of wealth and vice and pride 
That marks the vulgar millionaire, 

The foreign faces torture-tried 

And fierce with hate are otherwise. 

Across thy fields the sweet winds blow 
And the red evening sunbeams shine; 

Thine is the joy of things that grow. 
The pureness of the earth is thine. 

The cattle in thine endless fields, 

Thy good grain grown in sun and shower 
To the rich crop the harvest yields, 

Are to the nations food and power. 

Across the lands the steam cars go, 
Across the seas the great ships glide 

To melting rock and solid snow. 
And thou art safely stored inside. 



29 



To snatch the dying from the grave — 
The living corpses famine-gnawed — 

For this you haste o'er land and v^ave — 
No land too far, no sea too broad. 

In alien lands the hungry strain 

With dying flesh against the death; 

The blessing of thy golden grain 

Is their strong shield that conquereth. 

Let no man say thou hast not pride — 
Thou hast the pride that v^isdom would: 

The schoolhouse on the valley-side 

And health and homes and brotherhood. 

The honest pride in honest worth 

Is thine, not pride in wealth or ease — 

Is not the strength to till the earth 

And feed the world, better than these ? 

Give some the sick unrest that comes 
With homeless golden wretchedness. 

For thee a hundred thousand homes 
And wider hearts that love and bless. 



30 



THE CITY 

Here are the seats of the mighty 

Fashioned for men as they are — 
Thunder and smoke of the railroad, 

Roar of the overhead car, 
Streets overcrowed w^ith faces. 

Clanging of hammer and steel. 
Stench of the street and the station, 

Whir of the automobile. 

We have builded it higher than Babel, 

We have hollowed it under the earth. 
We have wrought it as mortal is able 

For the glory of man and his mirth. 
On the fruits of the earth he is feasted 

In the flare of the giant hotel. 
Through the flesh of the earth on the subway 

He is hurried unerringly well. 

Built by the sweat of his labor, 

Wrought out of iron and fire. 
This is complete with whatever 

Man can devise or desire. 
Bought by his soul or his money 

Are pleasure and power and strife. 
Where vice is the partner of virtue 

And death is the comrade of life. 



31 



In the day the true sunlight is withered 

To a gray from the pureness of white, 
In the night this is wrapped in the garment 

Of a fiery pink haze of light. 
Like nothing that ever existed 

In far-away ages or place, 
We have fashioned this city of wonders 

For the glory and shame of the race. 



3^ 



HEAVEN 

Harps in heaven would not please, 
Throbbing all the new day long, 
Nor the strains of angel-song 

Chanting of the deity's 

Wisdom, power and majesty; 
If I find my heaven, I, 
Passing all this grandeur by, 

Know what I will have it be: 

Near a stream where water wells 
Over sunlit sand and stone, 
One girl walking all alone 

In a field of asphodels. 

— Like a lily not of earth 

Growing at the gates of dawn 
Where a kinder sun has shone 

Since the glory of its birth. 

— Like a lily tall and rare 
Swaying in a scented wind, 
Making all the earth seem kind. 

Making all the earth seem fair. 



33 



It will stop my heart to see 

How she stoops to pick the flowers, 
While the changeless heaven-hours 

Float away in ecstasy. 

I shall kiss her cool red lips; 

Where the grass is warm and sweet 
I shall lay me at her feet 

While her trembling finger-tips 

Trace sweet mazes in my hair, 

Wreathe the flowers in her own. 
Heavy crown or bulky throne 

Will not mar our pleasure there. 

To my sweetheart I shall say, 

**Let us think no more of those 
Who on earth were friends or foes — 
^^ Here is duty gone away." 

To me will my sweetheart say, 
**In this field of shining flowers 
Let us taste the present hours — 

Here is memory gone away." 

To my sweetheart I shall say, 
"Here where lovely waters glide 
Through green pastures sanctified 

Circumstance has lost its way." 



34 



To me will my sweetheart say, 
'* Think no more of time or change, 
Let your heart in gladness range — 

Here has death been driven away, 

Though as sweet as life can be, 
On the earth our love was brief 
Here in rest and sweet relief 

We can love eternally.'* 



35 



OUR CREATION 

Beyond the whirl of the planets, 

In the outer dark, 
Where never a sun-ray enters 

Or a star-spark — 
There is no food for the senses 

Inthat far place. 
No matter, no motion, and therefore 

No time, no space. 

Shot like an arrow onward 

Swifter than light. 
Thousands of light-years outward 

Into the night. 
Into the place of the silence. 

The cold and the dark, 
Would we could go past the sun-ray 

And the star-spark. 

— Just you and I — two lovers — 

Beyond all space, 
When time is lost in the nothing 

Of that far place! 
There we should form a creation. 

Out of nothing the real; 
The failures of earth we should banish 

To create the ideal. 



36 



At the first the cold and the darkness 

And the shudder of night 
We should change to the flaming of colors 

And the glory of light. 
And we should make sound as of music, 

Now heard and now mute, 
And odors of flowers and of perfumes 

And taste of sweet fruit. 

We should create an island 

In a gold sea 
Where the winds were scented of roses 

And the waves in glee 
Threw up their bright yellow waters 

On the golden sands, 
Where the sky and the trees and the colors 

Were the work of our hands. 

And you would choose the day-tints 

And I the night. 
And each might be green or yellow 

Or red or white, 
And the night might be one of December 

And the day June's, 
And the light of the sun might be purple 

And green the moon's. 



37 



There where no foes could unbind us 

Or fate bid us part 
We should join all the wonder of nature 

With the pleasure of art. 
The years could not give us to sorrow, 

Nor death bid us die, 
Nor chance by an evil tomorrow 

Wring forth a cry. 

Thus in our own creation 

Either shifting or still, 
W^here space and time and sensation 

Were the works of our will. 
Beyond the realm of the sun-ray 

And the threat of the night 
We should live in a love everlasting 

And the freedom of might. 



38 



NEW YEAR'S EVE 

This night of all each watcher pondereth 
On that fell gift that many New Years 

bring: 
The grave — and thinks even as the chime- 
bells ring 

Thousands of men are giving up the breath. 

Thousands of men like you and me, he saith, 
Dying tonight, and more at vanishing 
Of night will die, at noon, at evening — 

And thus each day till all of us meet death. 

Yea, but the early light of morrow-morn 
How many thousand new-born souls will 
see! 
And all the destined days bear toward the 
goal 
The mighty millions of the yet unborn, 
The truer, stronger, better race to be. 
For which the tireless ages roll and roll. 



39 



SONG TO MAI A 

{From in Modern Times) 

Queen of the earth and of the year, 
Tender-eyed Maia, art thou here 

To fill all men with breath of spring, 
To dry with sun the crocus' tear, 

And stir the leaves with gladdening ? 

Thy breath is of anemonies 

And cool to nostrils quick to seize; 

Thy dress like Dian's gold and green 
Is filled with ripples of the breeze 

And scent of earth and evergreen. 

The birds are happy thralls to you 

And sing thy praise the whole day through, 

Admitting need and love of thee; 
The brown fields take thy color too 

In token of their loyalty. 

Through thee men lose their care and fear, 
Leave Winter's woe-debts in arrear, 

And all take thee a youthful bride; 
Thou giv'st them strength to live the year 

In joy of spring and summer-tide. 



40 



SUMMER 

The world is old but beauty dwells in it 
Just as in long-forgotten centuries, 

There is no change but that our little wit 

Wags of itself until our reverence sleeps. 

Still every morn the new-born wonder peeps, 
O'er the fresh hills or over sparkling seas 
Red with the death of deathless deities, 

Still the sweet summer winds upon their way 
Shake the bright leaves the whole long sum- 
mer through, 

Still in the lap of Earth the lazy Day 
Lolls half-asleep and overtired to woo, 

Yet must he kiss her golden-shining hair 

And tell her through the years she still is fair, 
As ages gone has been his wont to do. 

This afternoon it seemed the very sun 
Weary of turning rested half an hour. 

Yea, the lost hope of many a buried one 
I thought had come to summer— deathless 
dower, r- 

It seemed the middle of eternity 

And that no thing would ever come to end; 

Not a leaf shook on any tremulous tree. 

The shadows moved not on the slumbering grass, 



41 



Only one clear, sweet bell, time's constant 
friend, 
Throbbed for the weary hours that would not 
pass. 

Tonight the horned moon is gold ablaze 

With one gold star beside her in the skies; 
It is a night when all the wandering ways 
Of woodland are enchanted; in the leaves 
Pan is abroad, and by the bright fireflies 
The dryads dance as everyone believes 
Who sees the satyrs on the reedy plain 
And Daphne turn from wood to girl again, 
Or hears the wind-gods' whispered secrecies. 



THE FLUX OF THINGS 

Whereto shall we cling, we weak mortals, 

For nature commands us to cling 
To something that stirs not nor crumbles 

Nor flees with mercurial wing; 
But all things are shifting, are shifting 

As the rain to the sun to the rain, 
And only the sureness of shifting 

Is sure to remain. 

Strong rock that is shattered and sundered, 

Strong ship that is sunk in the seas. 
Strong building that lieth in ruin — 

What faith can we fasten to these ? 
Strong joy that is slave unto sorrow, 

Strong life that is vassal to death, 
You are shifting and weak and uncertain 

As the dying's breath. 

Strong soul that was born with a purpose. 

Let us see how you bear the world's swing. 
You are shifting as seasons are shifting 

From the spring to the winter to spring. 
The sun giveth place unto darkness. 

Nor knoweth a purpose or goal, 
And changes give place unto changes 

In the shifting soul. 



43 



THE POET 

The lone heights of Parnassus mount 

Are mine, and mine the bowers of love 

An mine is the Castalian fount 

With all the fame and power thereof. 

For some are fierce in battle-strife, 
And some are warm in virtue curled, 

And some are great in righteous life — 
But it is mine to rule the world! 

For who can stir the hearts of men. 
And who can shake the seats of bliss, 

Has gained the great dominion — 
The lordship of the world is his. 

My song can boom of battle-rage 
And whirl the weapons of the brave 

A sun-baked conquest-pilgrimage 
O'er treacherous land and alien wave. 

Or soft as breeze in summer trees 
Of sighing love my verses sing, 

And I can make with tricks as these 
A million lovers clasp and cling. 



44 



'Tis mine to sing of desperate kiss 

And throbbing breast and passionate sighs 

And all the sweet devotedness 

Of wistful lips and thoughtful eyes. 

None can escape my reaching rule — 
The dead man's friend disconsolate, 

The school-boy in the grammar-school, 
The emperor in his palace-gate. 

None can escape my pinionings — 

The husband when the birth-time nears, 

The wife that at the cradle sings. 
The babe that in the cradle hears. 

The blacksmith with his white-hot bands 
Is mine in singing at the forge, 

With sighs and songs in conquered lands 
I rule the victims and the scourge. 

The old man dying faintly leans 

To hear a song remembered 
Of youth and all that youth-time means. 

None can escape me — save the dead. 



45 



